Knock Knock

"Who—who is it?" Rosie spoke at the closed door.
"Your best pal," Zeta replied.
"Alright, just a sec—"

The carroty colored haired man grunted as he rose from the leather couch; opening the door, his grin was stretching ear to ear.

"Zeta! How pleasant of you to stopover! Wow, only seems 2 hours ago you were here! Great!"

He took grasped her and hugged her securely. Zeta responded with a grunt.

"Ya'know, I think you require talking to more people, maybe socializing! Hey, Tommy's coming later in the morning, maybe like 9 or 10 a.m., I'm sure he won't come at this damned hour. So, uh, what's up?"

Zeta guided him away from her into the office, shutting the door behind her. Rosie had an impression of being hopeful on his face.

What the hell—

"Rosie," She sighed.

"I'm not here for that, get over it." The sting in her feet was becoming a little irritable, she sat on Rosie's desk, and afterward laying on it with her hands weaved behind her head. Rosie sat in the chair at the back of his desk.

"What! No, no! I was just hoping we would talk for a few hours or so, you need to start teaching me Russian."

"—Like you're going to ever meet a Russian anyway," She scoffed.

"What makes you think that?"

"You're a ginger, not many Russians' like gingers, I don't know why. Or maybe, that's just from my perspective."

"—Stop being so down on yourself, you hear? Yeah, sure, you're a Russian with red hair, but you shouldn't hate yourself for that," Ken pleaded.

"My Father hated ginger haired kids, and I was the reason he hated them," Covering her face with her hands, she laughed.

"But you bleached your hair white, and your freckles have been erased, you shouldn't still be damning yourself over the past!"

"—You're right, for once. I'm going to sleep here, as usual. Wake me up when something important happens."

Three a.m. Fucking insomnia.

Blowing a short breath from her lips, Zeta got up and sat in her rawhide chair alongside the wall.

"well, uh, good! Okay, I'll do that! Oh, and by the way, why did you visit Paul at the Malibu?"
"How'd you know."
"You reek of cigarettes,"

Shit. I forgot to—Agh!

"—Go get some sleep, he says -I have been sitting in this chair all night with the lights off drinking coffee! This is a disaster. We are so screwed, man! These gorillas, listen to me, are gonna come down here and rip my head off. It's ridiculous! I did NOT go to law school for this! Ok, now what the hell are we gonna do?"

Rosie sounded as he was talking to himself until another smooth voice replied. Zeta was quietly half-asleep.

This isn't eavesdropping, hell, he came here. But at the same time I should have stayed home.

"Shut up, sit down, relax. I'll tell you what we're gonna do. You're gonna find out who took our cocaine - and then, I'm gonna kill them." The voice said. "—Who's that on the chair over there?"

"That's a good idea. That's a GREAT idea. Oh, that's Zeta, my best friend, she, uh, came from up North about two years ago. You wanna meet her? She asleep though. I think."

No, I don't want to meet Tommy, leave me alone. Oh damn, well, agh,—

Zeta belched out a yawn and stretched from her chair, giving Tommy a single upward nod.

"Zeta Fiorillo."

Tommy scanned her from the toes, up.

"Vercetti. Tommy Vercetti. You're from up North? No shit?"
"Liberty. Portland, Red Light District." She replied.
"Portland, Hepburn Heights."
"Interesting. I hope to be working with you or for you, Comrade Vercetti."
"I'll look forward to it."

And with that, she left Rosie's office to clean her suit.

Tommy turned his attention to Ken.

"She's cute, huh?" Rosie implied.

"Not the right time for that shit Ken, you were saying?"

"— Let me think, let me think, let me think. OH! There's this retired Colonel, Colonel Juan Garcia Cortez. He's the one that helped me set up this deal well away from Vice City's established thugs. Ok? Now, listen. He's holding his party out in the bay on his expensive yacht and all of Vice City's big players are gonna be there. Ok? I have an invite, of course I have an invite, but there's no way that I'm going out there, sticking my head out the door - no way! Not gonna happen."

" I told you, shut up! I'll go myself..."

Tommy turned, and made his way to the door, irritated.

"Ho - whoa, whoa! Hey, I like 1978 too, but, y'know, this isn't gonna be a beer and strippers do. I mean, no offense, but I think that you might turn heads on the runway for the wrong reasons."

"What's wrong with the way I'm dressed?"

"Ok, look, here. Stop by Rafael's, tell him I sent 'ya. He'll make you look respectable."
Tommy went towards Rosie again and took a document from his hand.

"OK, go, c'mon..."

The typical Zeta was hiding behind a corner, watching Tommy leave Ken's place. As soon as he was out of sight, she entered the building and barged through the office door.

"I want details about Comrade Vercetti."

Gaiting through to the end of the room, she sat on Rosie's desk.

"Information? Why?"

"Of course, what do you have? I'm sure you have him on file, hell, Forelli sent you something, and he should have. I need to know everything."

Rosie opened drawers and slammed them shut, scurrying about in his desk and near it. After a few minutes, he finally found a vanilla folder, he was proud of himself.

"Ah-Ha! Here we go—Wait, why am I doing this? Isn't this an invasion of privacy or something close to that?"

A curious and a one-track minded russkie snatched the folder immediately. She licked her finger and opened the file. To her surprise, the first thing she saw was his date of birth.

1951 . . . He's 35? He looks like he's in his late 20's, but 35?

"What's up?"
"Let's see here . . . Thomas Vercetti … Portland, Hepburn Heights . . . blah blah blah… psychotic killer—Harwood Butcher!"

Something lit up in her dense memory, she nearly forgot what it was, but this time, she was lucky.

"Huh, wow, never though of himbeing the Butcher." Rosie blurted.

"I remember when I was a kid—about five years old—someone close to me left for a very long time. No one told me why, not even Forelli. I don't remember their name."

"So what you're thinking is, Tommy could have been your friend 15 years ago. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I don't see why not, it's possible since the both of you hailed Liberty." He slapped the desk. Woo! It's like a reunion!"

"Hardly. My childhood friend could have been a female. Damn, I wish I could recall more memories. Hm, I should leave; I need to clean this suit. I'll be back in an hour."

Hopping off the desk, Zeta gloomily opened the way out.

"An hour, why? You're not going to kill a horde of people are you? Or walk around Vice Point for pointless reasons? Oh hey! What about picking up Claude from Escobar?"

She stood in the doorway, thinking for a second.

"It's most likely Claude's flight was canceled because of the upcoming storm . . ." She paused. "I'll visit Paul today."

Rosie complained. "Ooooohhhhh, jeez. You probably forgot that he's a pathological liar, too. Zeta, you're going to face something horrible, I know it!"

…Paul… Wouldn't do something as far as cheati—

"I'll see you later, Rosie."

The tailor waved at her to signal that her suit was ready; she smirked as her backside left the chair. The suit was as clean as it could possibly get, crisp folds, and the light smell of lavender. Zeta heavily tipped the dark-haired, short, plump, tailor in one-hundred dollar bills, new. Before dropping off her suit, she wandered the store and purchased an all dark green suit, and wore that as her ashen suit was cleaned, the green suit wasn't fitted well enough; it created an image of her being slightly bigger around waist.

A good fifty minutes sitting here, with no worry in the world. Why can't life be like this all the time? Oh, right, I'm supposed to murder someone for the Family down here.

"Thank you, Sir." The tailor said.

"You're very welcome." She replied.

Turning around, she heard an attention seeking cough. Without turning, she responded.

"Yes?"

"May I ask your name, Sir?"

"…Zeto. And yours?"

"Montgomery."

"Thank you, Monty. I'll see you first for all my suit necessities."

A bell jingled as she opened the door, and went through. With a short leap, Zeta fell into the driver's side of her black and jade Stinger. Tossing her suit aside, she gripped the steering wheel, twisted her wrist, and headed for the Malibu. The air was whipping her hair around, and whispering in her ears; the smell of Vice Point was clean today. Liberty reeked of Guido bastards and burning money, everyday. She never wanted to return.

Can I really wait 6 years to get hitched? I don't break promises, especially Claude's. An upset Claude is not a pleasant Claude.

The Stinger silently stopped in the back parking lot—the only parking lot—at the Malibu. Leaving the suit in the passenger seat would most definitely be stolen; she decided to place her suit in the trunk. The Malibu. Watching the bodies do these strange movements was humorous, but annoying all at the same time. Getting pass the horde of dancing zombies was no easier than kissing her own elbow. She finally arrived at the Bar and asked,

"Paul?"

A woman with dark hair and a red strapless dress raised her head, and elegantly mixed all sort of colors in a glass. The fume was alluring, but Zeta knew better.

"He ran off to his apartment with an Italian bird and a Cuban. I'm sorry hun, you're just going have to wait until he comes back or join his whore gathering. He left ten minutes ago, I'm sure you can still make it."

"I see, Thank you very much."

"No problem, hun. Have a blast."

In disbelief, she gaited quickly out and to her Stinger and drove to Paul's apartment near the North Point Mall.

Paul . . .

Hurriedly twitching the key to his apartment from her trouser pocket, she was panicking. She didn't want her heart hurt, nor, change her perspective of the opposite gender into negatives. The doorknob rattled as she twisted her wrist and pushed her shoulder into the door, opening it and light poured though into the living where Paul was; his wet, sweating flesh shining along with other two bodies on top of him and beside him. He seemed to be disoriented by the sudden light, he fell off the couch and regained his footing.

One, two, three—four. Not a condom in sight, love leftovers on the floor and couch, and on some of these bodies. If only I hadn't gotten an alteration in my actions with murder, every single one of these beasts would be dead.

"Who's ther'," He shaded his eyes. "gotta wai' yaaahr turn, Paulo's a busy man, Yeh?"

"I see that now. I'm sorry to have disturbed you, Lobby."

"Lobby?—Wait! Zeta it's not what i' looks like! I, can explain! Ok?"

The door slammed and the female made her way to her Stinger, and sat on the trunk.

He must have not been worth the effort and time; I don't feel livid or miserable. Relaxed—actually.

There was supposed to another scene after the one above, but I wanted to publish this by 10:30 p.m. I'm terrible at describing physical features, but I think I do just fine with the dialogue? Review.

-Rhett